The Next Time We Meet
by SpaceKat06
Summary: Since Ba Sing Se it's been a while since Katara and Zuko last saw each other. I don't own Avatar, but oh, sometimes I wish we didn't have to wait a week for each chapter of season 3!


Zutara…

Wrath

"Look!" Shouted Aang suddenly. He looked up the same moment I glanced down. I watched his scar contort as he locked eyes with Aang. They were filled only with surprise not with shock. He knew he had not forgotten.

"Katara?!" cried Sokka as I launched myself from Appa's saddle. Water roiled from the river we had been flying over. Reaching up in a long serpantine wave to catch my fall.

Someone was screaming and I realized it was me but all I could see were those golden eyes, still focused on Aang. Then they slid into mine. Hatred fought for dominance inside me. I wanted to crush those eyes. Tear them out. How could I have trusted them? I could feel the power coursing through me as the water around me hardened and melted in sync to every momentary bout of icy hatred and boiling rage. I watched him flames flow over his ivory skin as he tensed. I raised my arms as though I could lift the whole ocean and dump its might down onto him.

"Aang! We've got to land! We've got to stop Katara!" screamed Sokka, frantically sliding down Appa's back to grab Aang's arm, ironically preventing him from doing just that. Puzzlement oversetting his surprise Aang stared in alarm at the fear in Sokka's face.

"Why? What's going on?" he asked.

"Yeah, Snoozles. What's got your panties in a twist?" demanded Toph, trying to hide her fear. She was completely reliant on her hearing and what they were telling her wasn't good.

"The last time Katara was this angry she raised you up from the bottom of the ocean, Aang! And that was before she had any training! You've got to stop her or I don't know what will happen!" cried Sokka.

She was crying. Even as he cleared his mind of all thoughts and prepared for battle he noticed this. He remembered the last times he had seen her cry. The first had been when she remembered her mother and that had wrenched from him a confession he had told no one else. Those had cleared and led to things hitherto unimagined. Mai's hands had not been so warm.

The second time she had look up at him, Aang's limp body in her arms, her thick hair spread out behind her like a backdrop. The heartbreak in those cobalt eyes had been worse than the hurt accusations she had thrown at him earlier. He had watched an innocence die away that night.

Her skill was tremendous. She had somehow managed to call a tsunami sized wave from the mediocre river before him. He remembered how Azula had been only able to defeat her with his help.

They collided into a thunderclap of steam, blown backwards by the force of Aang landing between them. Katara was engulfed in the confused remains of her wave and he was hurled into the trees.

"Enough you two!" shouted the Avatar. "I don't--!" A wave snapped out and flicked him out of the way, just as Katara shot out of the water, the water in her clothes streaming into a whip. Branches and underbrush caught fire as he charged out of the woods onto the muddy bank.

There were no words. No screams or accusations this time. There was no forgiveness in those eyes and no regret in his.

Suddenly the earth opened up and ate them both.

He couldn't see. Somewhere close he could hear Katara. "TOPH!" she was screamed. "Let me out of here!" Earth bender! He thought and this made him angry.

"Now listen, Sugar Queen," shouted Toph with her fists on her hips. "you can't just go around and—"

The ground exploded and Zuko leapt out. "I am not some weakling to be stopped by an Earth bending peasant!" he roared.

"Peasant?!" Katara screamed, the walls that held her crumbling into sand as she sucked the water out of them. "_Peasant?!"_ She was practically howling for his blood as she hurled herself at him.

_His blood?!_ The thought stopped her mid-charge. Zuko skidded to a stop and juked backwards to a safe distance, wary of this new change.

The water around her lost it's edge and swayed around her like a living shawl. She looked at him and suddenly realized what he really was. _Wasn't it odd that one who was supposed to rule the world was always here?_

"K-Katara?" She froze and whirled around.

Sokka was lying unconscious near the area where Zuko has blasted his way free from Toph's trap. Aang looked up her, anger and fear and hurt clouding his gray eyes. There was a large red welt across his face where she'd hit him. She looked away and knelt next to her brother.

The water that hung around her shoulders, floated down to encompass her brother's body from head to toe. As he began to glow she heard a rustle a ways off.

"Coward." She said, her voice clear, and calm. The other two stiffened by she had no more room for rage now. As always, hatred and anger had brought her nothing but pain and the suffering of loved ones. She was empty and hollow save for the determination to make sure that Sokka walked away without a single scar on him.

The three benders knelt around their leader and waited for the blue light to fade. The gigantic white buffalo crouched at the boy's head groaning his concern and the lemur purred worriedly from atop the avatar's head. Zuko stood, rooted in the tree line and waited too.


End file.
